


Marble: Episode 1-Introductions

by alabastergiant



Series: Marble [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, M/M, Original Character(s), Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 10:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19105330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alabastergiant/pseuds/alabastergiant
Summary: My name is Marble. I was "born" on Earth right after the Gem War with no knowledge of Gems, other than two things. One: Gems are a threat to Earth and humanity, and must be stopped. Two: I am one. I have spent the five thousand years since training alongside the greatest fighters humanity has to offer, hiding just behind the spotlight of humanity, and hunting other Gems before they can hurt humans. I just received a report that there's Gem activity in Beach City...





	Marble: Episode 1-Introductions

I climbed my way out of the cave. Wow, that sun is bright. I looked at the sun. Ow, that’s a bad idea. When my vision cleared, I found myself looking at my chest. What was that rock doing on my chest? Wait, it’s a gem. The word “gem” flooded my mind with, memories? Not quite memories, but almost. I knew my name was Marble, I was a Gem, and the world I was on needed to be defended from other Gems. I knew nothing of my past, or how to fight these Gems, but that didn’t matter. I could see people from here, and they might.

...5000 Years Later…

I had trained with the greatest warriors of each age, Medjay, Greek hoplites, Roman soldiers, Carthaginian soldiers, monks from across the world, knights from across Europe, Napoleon’s Troops, British redcoats, Revolutionary minutemen, the Royal Air Force during WWII, Gurkhas and even Seal Team Six. If there was a weapon a human had made, I knew how to use it. I had made contacts across the world. I had even looted Gem technology from Gems I had defeated and used it to upgrade the human tech I had.  
But that wasn’t important now. What was important was the three Gems I was watching. I had heard rumors of Gems in Beach City, and here they were: an Amethyst, a Garnet, and a Pearl, just standing in front of a human town, as if they weren’t about to try to destroy the whole place. The Garnet was clearly the toughest, there was no way I could take her down, especially while outnumbered. She’d have to go down fast, before she had time to react. The Amethyst and the Pearl appeared to be about as tough as each other, so I would take them down in whatever order they came.  
I climbed down the side of the building I was on. I rushed past the storefronts and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass. I recognised the stark white skin criss-crossed by black lines the thickness of a hair and the waist length, white hair. I recalled my eyes, all black with white pupils. I made out the black splotch filling my eye sockets and vertical lines on my lips. I saw my body, as twig-like as the Pearl’s and the triangular gem on my flat chest, the same pattern as my skin. My black leotard covering my torso was itself covered with camo fatigues I had gotten from a military surplus store.  
I snuck up behind the Gems. I unclipped my kyoketsu-shoge from my belt. Two spins of the hoop end, and I sent it sailing through the air, tangling up the Garnet. A quick yank on the rope, and the Garnet came flying, backward toward me, and I planted the knife on the other end of the rope in the base of her neck. She poofed, and two gems fell to the ground. No Gem I had poofed had done this before, so I was surprised for a second, but then I had to dismiss the thought from my mind.  
The Amethyst was the first to respond. She drew her weapon, a twin tipped whip, from a gem on her chest and lashed out blindly in anger. This was exactly what I was hoping for. I held out my left arm, and let the whip wrap around my forearm. I pulled the whip, disarming her and knocking her off balance. I whirled around and struck her with her own whip, poofing her in turn.  
By this time, the Pearl had figured out what was going on, and drew a spear from her gem on her forehead. I whirled my kyoketsu-shoge and let it fly toward her. She let it wrap around her spear and planted it in the ground, preventing me from using it effectively. She drew another spear, and lunged for me. I swatted her spear aside and cursed under my breath. I probably should have gone for the Pearl second. She was much more level headed and it would be much easier to take down an off-balance opponent. I switched gears in my head. I had to go on the defensive, and wait for an opening to present itself. We dodged and deflected each other’s blows. I threw a shuriken. She spun her spear, deflecting it. Her spear gave her a reach that would be hard to match, but I could use that to my advantage. She lunged, obviously expecting me to dodge again, but instead, I leaped forward, inside her reach, drew a combat knife, and planted it solidly in her chest.  
I stood over the gem of my final opponent. I retrieved my kyoketsu-shoge, and picked up the gem of the Amethyst and headed over to where the Garnet had dropped her gems. There was a ruby and a sapphire. I knew that Quartz and Rubies are soldiers and would recover faster. I had to delay them for a while, so I threw them into the ocean.  
As I let go of the gems, I heard a boy in a red shirt with a yellow star shout out from behind me, “Noooooo!” he planted himself between me and the gems.  
“Look, kid,” My voice came smooth, but powerful, “those things you’re protecting aren’t friendly. They’re here to destroy humanity,” I tried to reach around him, but he wouldn’t let me.  
“No, they’re not. They’re the Crystal Gems. They protect humanity.”  
“Really now? What makes you say that?”  
“They’re my friends.”  
That gave me pause. Any Gem that would make a human friend was a Gem I wanted to meet.  
“Tell you what. They’ll be back soon anyways, so, how about we wait for them together?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I’m not sure how, but Gems regenerate if you don’t destroy their, well, gems.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah. I find that this comes in handy, because I really don’t like to kill things.”  
“Huh. How do I know you won’t hurt me?”  
“I don’t think that your friends would let me.”  
“Oh, yeah,” he stuck out his hand to shake mine, “My name’s Steven, Steven Universe.”  
“I’m Marble, nice to meet you.”  
“Do you like donuts?”

….3 days later…

I had gotten to know Steven. He was perhaps the most innocent person I’d ever known, he ate pretty much all junk food, and he hadn’t gotten a human education. I aimed to remedy that last part. He was a bright kid, but he hadn’t gotten the opportunity to learn about important pieces of human culture. He already knew how to read and write, but you can always get better. I had sorted out everything he needed to know into Reading/Writing, Human History, Math, and Fighting. Today was the first day of classes. For some reason, he was more interested in learning about fighting with a shield than other possible weapons, but it wasn’t my place to ask why. If he wanted to learn a particular way, it was my job as a teacher to help him with that.  
“Always hold your shield at the ready unless you’re striking, and then hold it as close to the ready position as possible. When blocking, the ready position is found here, just below the eyes and covering your torso. Most of your squishy bits are covered in this way, and the ones that aren’t, can be covered quickly. Let me show you,” I picked up a spare shield and held it up to indicate how to hold it. I heard a scream from behind me. The next thing I knew, there was an Amethyst pinning me to the ground, holding my arms behind my back.  
“Get away from him!”  
I smiled at her despite the pain in my shoulders, “That’ll be rather tough for me, considering you’re on top of me.”  
“Yeah, well, uh, shut up,” she clearly wasn’t used to having someone smack talk her, despite what Steven told me about her enjoying smack talking.  
Steven’s voice rang out, “Stop! She didn't mean to hurt you! It was a mistake!”  
“Huh?” the Pearl was standing over me, spear ready to strike.  
“She thought you were bad Gems! She’s been fighting to protect Earth for so long, she thought all Gems are bad!”  
I piped up, “He’s telling the truth.”  
“How do we know you aren't just spying on us?!”  
“If I was, I’d have introduced myself in a much more friendly manner. Or hidden myself from you. You never would have even known I was here. Or, I would have stored you. Probably the first one now that I look at you,” I looked the Pearl up and down.  
“What?” This time, Steven was questioning me.  
“Well, as you know, Gems regenerate. So, I had to find some way of making sure that they don’t. At first, I buried them. That really didn’t work. I put them in steel blocks, but that didn’t work as well as I’d like, so I started cryogenically freezing them, and storing them using Gem technology. So far, there haven’t been any escapes, but that’s only going to last as long as I have power. Which, should be for most of Earth’s natural lifespan anyways.”  
“Why didn’t you just bubble them?” asked the Pearl.  
“What?” I had no clue what she was talking about.  
“Bubble them.”  
“Look, Hot Stuff, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you get your friend off of me, I can show you what I have done, and you can show me what you have done.”  
“How do we know you won’t attack us again?”  
“Well, Beautiful, I doubt I could take on her,” I nodded towards the Garnet, who was standing by the door, watching, “much less all three of you without the element of surprise. Though, I am full of surprises,” I winked at the Pearl.  
“What was that supposed to mean?!” she lowered her spear even closer to my face.  
“Which part?”  
“The part where you said you are full of surprises!”  
“It’s an innuendo. I’m implying things about,” I looked at Steven, “things I don’t know if I should talk about in front of him. How old is he? Eight?”  
“I’m thirteen. Thank you,” Steven said, proudly.  
“Well then,” I looked at the Pearl again, “I’m implying things about sex.”  
“What’s that?” the Pearl glared at me, and Steven slapped himself in the face.  
“Wow,” I grinned at the Pearl, “You don’t know a lot about those who you’re protecting, do you? Well, I can’t expect you to be the whole package, though, it depends on how much else you know.”  
“What package?!” I clearly wasn’t helping my case.  
“It’s a saying, it means that someone is beautiful, smart, and strong.”  
“Are you saying I’m not smart?!”  
“No, I’m saying that I would assume that if you’re defending someone, your first priority when off duty would be learning about them, but what do I know?”  
“Yes, what do you know?”  
“How to fly an F-15.”  
“What?”  
“It was a joke.”  
The Garnet took this as an opportunity to pick up the Amethyst, “She’s telling the truth. She’s not Homeworld.”  
“How can you tell?” the Amethyst asked.  
“A Homeworld Gem wouldn’t use human weapons.”  
“Oh, yeah.”  
I stood up and dusted myself off, “It’s not like I know how to use Gem weapons.”  
“You said that you used Gem technology to freeze Gems you poofed,” the Pearl looked at me sideways.  
“All I did was take a freezer off of a ship whose owner I poofed and hand it to a human who is good at this kind of thing. He installed it into my van, well, into a room behind a magic Gem door he also installed.”  
“You let a human near Gem technology?!”  
“I’d trust George with anything. Granted, I already have, but still…”  
“Who’s George?”  
“A car mechanic in Utah.”  
“Ugh, we’ll talk about George later. First, show us this van of yours,” the Pearl turned to leave, and everyone turned to follow, but Steven blocked us.  
“How about introductions? As you all know, I’m Steven. These are Pearl, Amethyst and Garnet.”  
“I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one that uses the type of Gem I am as my name,” I winked at Pearl again, and turned to leave.

....3 Minutes later…

“Here we are, my humble abode,” I swept my hand down the side of my olive green cargo van. I looked at my fingers, “Hey, Steven, you said that your dad runs the car wash, yes?”  
“Uh, yeah. Why?”  
“My van needs a wash.”  
“Oh. Why don’t we take your van over?”  
“I think your beautiful friend over there wouldn’t be happy with me if I did that before I showed her my van,” I pointed to Pearl.  
“Why do you keep calling Pearl ‘beautiful’ and things like that?”  
“Well, she is, isn’t she?”  
“Yeah, I guess so.”  
“Hey!” Pearl shook her head at us, “Anyways, let’s look at your van,” she threw open the back doors of my van, and discovered that all it had in it was a mattress, a hot plate, and spare clothes in the back, “Well, then, I guess you were lying about George.”  
“Fffffuuu...” I glanced at Steven and took a deep breath, “Heck no. You just did it wrong.”  
I closed the doors and took her to the side door. My gem glowed, activating the door. I slid it open and, with a flourish, literally jumped in. I landed on the hard steel floor of my hidden room. I stood up and turned to see Garnet climbing in, followed by Pearl and Amethyst. Steven started to follow, but was told to stay put by Pearl.  
My room looked like an underground bunker, complete with steel floor, concrete walls and ceiling, and fluorescent lighting. At least, I assumed the walls and ceiling were concrete. No matter how far I travelled, I never quite reached them. It was empty, at least until I called up something that George had installed. “So,” I turned to the Crystal Gems, “What is it you want to see?”  
Pearl’s mouth fell open as she looked around, “A human made this?”  
“Yes and no. I took the door from a starship I brought down. He fixed it up, aligned it with my gem and installed it on my van. He’s done a lot more since then. I mean, he installed all the weapons racks and the armor on my van.”  
“Weapons racks? Armor?” Pearl stared at me like I was saying I was Queen of England.  
I nodded, “Here, let me show you. Room, I need weapons,” racks upon racks of every weapon that doesn’t require super strength to hold rose out of the ground, guns, swords, spears, knives, bows, everything. I winked at Pearl, whose mouth had somehow dropped even farther down. “You want to see more?”  
“There’s more?” Amethyst was staring at a PF-98 Anti-Tank Missile Launcher. I was particularly glad it wasn’t loaded.  
“Not in here, but let me show you,” I got out of the room and into the driver’s seat of my van. Steven jumped in the passenger seat, and the Crystal Gems climbed in the back. I turned to Steven, “Steven, have you ever heard of Frederick the Great?”  
Steven racked his memory for a second before telling me he hadn’t.  
“That’s too bad. He was a real renaissance man. His interests included music, philosophy, and war. You know what he said about artillery?”  
Again, the answer was negative.  
“Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl,” as soon as I finished the sentence, a laser light cannon sprouted from the grill of the van, and two more came out of the roof. I turned to Pearl, “The armor is just on the van. It isn’t visible, but it’s there,” I turned off the cannons and turned on the van, “Where to, sir?” I jokingly asked Steven.  
Before Steven could react, Pearl screamed, “No! Steven isn’t going anywhere in a...a...a,” she clearly didn’t know what to call my van. I decided to help her.  
“A tank?”  
“Yeah! Wait, what’s a tank?”  
“An armoured human assault vehicle with a cannon like turret and, occasionally, a space for a person with an anti-personnel gun. They are widely accepted among humans as the epitome of unstoppable war machines.”  
“And we...are in...a tank?”  
“Not exactly, but it’s the closest equivalent I can think of.”  
“I will not allow Steven anywhere near this...thing!”  
I shrugged. I could understand. She clearly saw Steven as her child, and it was her right to prevent him from being around what she saw as dangerous. I turned off the van, and got out, “Where are we going then? The beach house?”  
“We’re going to talk to this...George.”  
“That will be difficult without me, and I’m not going to Utah without my van.”  
Garnet picked me up and walked to the beach house.  
I flailed around, fully aware of the fact I was making it easier for Garnet to carry me, “Hey! Let me go!”  
“No,” Garnet didn’t show much emotion. I couldn’t blame her. Her compatriots supplied plenty of that themselves. Speaking of…  
“Amethyst? You haven’t talked much since I showed up. Steven says you like to talk, and I was looking forward to it. Is something wrong?” I stopped flailing and looked at Amethyst.  
“I don’t want to talk to the person who attacked us. Just because you fooled Steven doesn’t mean you’ll fool me,” she crossed her arms, and turned to look away from me.  
“Fair enough,” I leaned my head on my hand, and my arm on Garnet’s shoulder. When we got to the beach house, Garnet put me down and handed me a phone, “Call George.”  
I quickly stood at attention and saluted Garnet. I dialed in George’s phone number.  
A man with a voice that made him sound like he’s always angry picked up the phone, “Hello, Bob’s Auto Shop. How may we help you?” he belted into his phone.  
“Hi Arnold. It’s Marv. Can I talk to George?” I used the pseudonym I had used when I introduced myself to Arnold.  
“Yeah. Sure. George! Your girl is on the line!” despite the fact he held the phone away from his face, I could still hear him loud and clear. I could hear the clatter of tools being dropped. George picked up the phone.  
“Hey girl!” he did his best to imitate a stereotypical city girl. He didn't do terribly well.  
“Hey, George. You have told him how gay you are. Right?”  
“Yeah. He assumes that since he’s having an affair, so is everyone else. You’re the only one who calls me at work other than Dave, so it must be you.”  
“That sounds like him. Hey, are you up for a road trip?”  
“Is this a social call, or business?”  
“Fifty percent of one, fifty percent of another.”  
“Oh? How do you mean?”  
“The business is pretty social. Tell you what, why don't you bring Dave? That way you don't need to find the elephant.”  
“Sure. I’ll tell Dave to be ready to leave as soon as I’m done here.”  
When I hung up, Amethyst was glaring at me, “Who’s Dave? Why would he need to find an elephant?”  
I sighed. I didn’t think she’d believe me, but it was best policy to tell the truth in this situation. I wanted her to trust me after all.  
“Dave is George’s husband. As for the elephant, whenever one of them goes on a trip without the other, the one that stays hides the plush elephant that Dave used to propose somewhere in the house. Then the one that left has to find it.”  
“What happens if he doesn’t?” Amethyst clearly didn’t know what to think of this.  
“Don’t know. They’ve always found it.”  
“Hmm…” she looked me up and down, and walked away. The door at the back of the house glowed purple and opened up. She walked into it.  
I turned to Pearl and Garnet, “Is it something I said? Or is it still about me attacking you guys? I apologised, right?”  
Garnet shook her head, “Not really.”  
“Oh. In that case, I’m sorry for attacking you guys. I’ll apologise to Amethyst if she comes back out. In the meantime, could you explain to me what ‘bubbling’ is?”

...2 Days Later…

Amethyst had come back out, and I had apologised to her. It wasn’t enough for her to trust me, but I could see that I was making progress. I was teaching Steven about the rise of the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt when there was a knock at the door. Garnet walked over to get it. Standing in the doorway was two well toned men in their late forties, one in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, and the other in a button up shirt and nice pants. She simply stepped to the side and welcomed them in the unemotional way I had come to expect.  
“George! Dave! Nice to see you!” I tackle hugged them in turn, “This is Garnet. She’s one of the people I want you to meet. The other three are back here.” I lead them over and introduced them to Steven, Pearl and Amethyst. They all seemed amiable enough.  
“Steven,” Pearl turned to Steven, “Why don’t you go outside for a bit? We need to talk in private.” Steven jumped up and ran out of the house. Amethyst followed, saying something about keeping an eye on him. Pearl turned to George, “So, I hear you are good with Gem tech.”  
“Yeah. I’ve been able to reverse engineer a lot of it and install it into Marble’s van.”  
“You do realize how dangerous it is to have a human messing around with Gem tech, right?”  
“Yeah. I’ve been careful not to let anyone else get near it. Not even Dave.” He wrapped his arm around his husband.  
“But you are a human that has been messing around with Gem tech. How are we to believe you won’t do anything foolish with it?”  
“If I was going to, wouldn’t I have done it within the last twenty years?”  
“You could be stockpiling it for later use.”  
“I didn’t think of that. Hmm…” George pondered for a second, “I guess you don’t? I have been mucking about with it since Marble introduced me to it over twenty years ago, but even before that, I was mucking about with the more advanced and dangerous human technologies. That’s all I can give for reason to trust me.”  
Pearl looked sideways at me, “I thought you said he was a car mechanic.”  
“I am,” George answered for me, “but I wasn’t always. I used to be an engineer for the military. I worked on nuclear submarines.”  
Dave gently elbowed George in the ribs, “I’ve seen him disassemble and reassemble one blindfolded. With the fuel rods taken out, of course.”  
“That’s...impressive?” Pearl looked to me for confirmation.  
I nodded, “It shouldn’t be possible. Hell, it shouldn’t be possible for someone with their vision.”  
“Yes, but how dangerous are they?”  
“One sub can carry as many as two dozen nuclear missiles, each capable of leveling a city. On top of that, they themselves are powered by extremely sophisticated generators, and if the generators malfunction, the whole thing goes boom.” Pearl’s eyes somehow grew even larger. I smiled at George, “I think we broke Pearl.” There was a long and awkward silence, until Pearl broke it.  
“Why would humans build anything like that?”  
“Why would Gems build things like that? I know they have.”  
“Touche.”  
I poked Pearl in the arm.  
“What was that for?” Pearl glared at me.  
“You told me to,” I looked at Pearl like it was blatantly obvious. It was everything I could do to keep a straight face.  
“What are you talking about?”  
“You said ‘touche.’ Touche means touch. So I touched.” My facade finally fell apart. I fell to the floor and howled in laughter.  
Pearl pressed her hand to her face, “You, you, you...fine,” She turned to Dave, “And why are you here?”  
“I’m George’s husband. You take him, you get me. We’re a combo deal.”  
The conversation continued for about an hour.  
Dave was telling a joke when Steven entered the door with a white paper bag, “And so the duck says...do I smell donuts?” Dave grabbed the bag and thrust his hand into it and pulled out a strawberry donut. I took the bag from him and gave it back to Steven.  
“I already had some donuts. I just got these ones for you,” Steven handed it to George who pulled out a chocolate donut. He handed it to me, and I tried to reach into the bag, when a buzzing in my pocket caused me to drop it. The last donuts fell out of the bag. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the keys for my van. They were buzzing and flashing.  
“Oh that’s just great,” I stood up, “Someone has tried to break into my van. Excuse me,” I ran out of the beach house, which I had come to realize was a temple, and leapt off the balcony and landed on the sand below. I heard Pearl and Garnet following me. I hadn’t expected it, but the backup was welcome.  
When I got to the van, I spotted a human in a dark purple sweater trying to break into my van with a coat hanger. I thought I recognized them, but I wasn’t sure, “Hey! You!” I realized announcing myself from far away was probably a bad idea, but it was too late. They got up and ran. I cursed under my breath and dashed over to my van. There were no signs that the attempt to break in had succeeded. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued the chase.  
The culprit dashed into a school and I followed. I knocked over a locker, stopping anyone from following me. If this who was who I thought they were, they wouldn’t appreciate Pearl and Garnet questioning them. They turned around a corner, and disappeared. I stopped, stood still and listened. There was the thudding of feet behind me coming from the Crystal Gems. There was the clattering of the air conditioner. There was a...sneeze? From inside a locker? I opened up the locker. Inside was Amethyst, wearing a sweater.  
“What are you doing?” I let her out of the locker, crossed my arms, and tried to look disappointed. Honestly, I was just impressed that she would do this.  
“I need to see your ‘storage.’ I need proof you aren’t shattering Gems.”  
“I forgot to show you my freezer, didn’t I?” Now, I was actually disappointed, in myself.  
“Did you forget? Or is there nothing to show?”  
“I forgot. Come on. I’ve got something to show you,” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and lead her back to where we had entered the school. We lifted the locker back up and opened the doors to find Pearl was pacing in front of the door and Garnet was tapping her foot behind her.  
When Pearl saw us leaving, she jumped over to look us over, “Are you okay? Did you catch the person who was trying to break into your van?”  
I smiled calmly at Pearl, “Yeah, Beautiful, we’re fine. The criminal got away, but I get the feeling that they won’t be bothering me again.” This time, when I called Pearl beautiful, her cheeks turned pale blue.  
“Okay. Umm...Are you sure that they won’t be back?”  
“Yeah. I’m sure. Follow me. I need to show you all something.”  
“What do you need to show us?”  
“Amethyst here,” I gently squeezed Amethyst, “reminded me I forgot to show you the freezer.”  
“The what?”  
Amethyst spoke up this time, “You know, the place Marble said she keeps the Gems she poofed.”  
I lead them over to my van and opened my secret room, “Room, deep storage please.” A large computer slowly and dramatically rose up from the floor, surrounded by fog released from the pneumatics in the floor. I typed in a command.  
A pipe next to the computer let out a “fwoosh” and the computer said I put on an oven mitt, reached into the tube and pulled out a metal tube. I twisted the top and turned over the tube. A cylinder of dry ice slid out into my mitted hand. I held it up to reveal the piece of aqua aura inside.  
“As you lower the temperature of something, everything slows down. I’ve lowered it so much, that anything that would normally be happening inside this gem, has effectively halted.”  
Garnet took the dry ice straight out of my hand, without protection, and held it up to eye level, “Impressive,” she handed it back, “Do you do this to all the gems you poof?”  
I took the cylinder and put it back into its tube and sent it back into storage, “Yeah, well, other than you guys.”  
“Um, we aren’t guys,” Amethyst pointed out.  
“It’s a human saying. It’s not supposed to impose a gender on anyone involved. I get the feeling you know that, but if there is another word you would prefer I use, please, let me know.”  
Amethyst gave me the most shit-eating smile I had ever seen, “I mean, yeah. I knew that. I’d prefer if you refer to me as a girl.”  
“But if I’m referring to all of you?”  
The Crystal Gems looked back and forth between each other. They all shrugged, and said some rendition of “Yeah, that sounds about right.”  
Pearl politely raised her hand, “I have one question. Umm...what’s sex?”  
I flashed my best attempt at a winning smile, “I’ll explain later. Maybe after Steven’s asleep.”


End file.
